North Carolina ban on same-sex marriage

You may not know the names of Thomas and Carol Ann Person. But in the late 1970s, they had a significant case in North Carolina. Attorney Ervin Brown remembers when they came to his office at the Legal Aid Society in Winston-Salem.

"They had been to the magistrate’s office to get married, and they had been turned down for a license," he says.

The Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds issued its first marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Monday morning. About a dozen couples lined up before the office opened at 8 o'clock. This comes after a federal judge in Asheville ruled on Friday the state's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

Now that there's no longer a hold on a federal appeals court decision striking down Virginia's same-sex marriage ban, federal judges in the Carolinas will have to follow that precedent. That means it's just a matter of time until bans in the Carolinas are struck down.

The United Church of Christ filed a federal lawsuit in Charlotte on Monday arguing that same-sex couples should be able to marry in North Carolina. Of course, there are many challenges to same-sex marriage bans playing out across the country. WFAE's Michael Tomsic joined Mark Rumsey to discuss where some of the lawsuits in North Carolina stand.

The American Civil Liberties Union plans to challenge North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriage.

The ACLU announced Tuesday it's amending a federal lawsuit it filed last year that challenges the state's ban on second parent adoptions. That policy prevents couples who are not married from adopting each other's children. It applies to gay and straight couples.